Original caption: "Overseer Artayou Carrier whipped me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped; he discharged the overseer. The very words of poor Peter, taken as he sat for his picture."

According to a Harper's Weekly article dated July 4, 1863, the slave pictured escaped from a plantation located in the state of Mississippi, made his way to the Union lines, and enlisted into the Union Army at the U.S. Army garrison at Baton Rouge, where the photo was taken[1].

Other sources claim that this slave was known as Gordon and photographs show that he joined the U.S. Army with the rank of private and fought in the American Civil war. In Harper's Weekly issues (July 4, 1863) & (July 2, 1864) show woodcuts of Gordon as a slave and then as a U.S soldier[2][3]

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